


l'appel du vide

by Emeka



Category: Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken | Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
Genre: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mild Gore, No Romance, No Sex, intrusive thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23608882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeka/pseuds/Emeka
Summary: to all those thoughts that don't make you a horrible person
Relationships: Gordin/Marth (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	l'appel du vide

Marth sits by once he has worn himself out training, just to watch the others. No doubt they like to see him as their put forth the effort toward their own betterment and he’ll take whatever raise in morale he can get right now. The pleasant breeze that’s out doesn’t put him in any hurry to move along either.

His gaze slips easily from comrade to comrade, Abel and Cain, Merric and Linde, to Gordin at the farthest side, where it stops.

Gordin. He’s been with Marth one of the longest of them all, and is one of the few who’s growth as a knight Marth was privileged to watch from the start. Combine the two factors together, and it is a proud, intensely nostalgic feeling he gets from the sight of him, a little unlike the feeling of any other.

He’s certainly grown stronger than he used to be, though you’d barely know it to look at him. The not unnoticeable muscles of his arms quiver as he pulls back the arrow, but he is still built slightly, with a face younger than his age. And while he has grown into a fearsome archer, Marth doubts that strength translates into swordplay, or any other close-quarters defense.

A cold certainty enters Marth’s mind, horrifying him with its touch yet still undeniably there: he could kill Gordin if he wanted to, or worse, as he hears bandits and knights of lesser honor do. Maybe both. Maybe at the same time. He has never tried to kill anyone slowly but he thinks he knows how the gut could be cut open for a slow bleed-out, and as Gordin’s strength rapidly failed he wouldn’t be able to stop him yanking down his trousers, or forcing his thighs apart to make room--

Gordin notices him looking and waves. The gesture, or just the sight of his happily exhausted face, snaps something in like a punch of nausea in the stomach. Marth waves back, smiling too to keep back the sour bile rising in the back of his throat, before standing to leave.

There is no reasoning at all for that... scenario... that begins to make sense. He doesn’t even consider acting that way to his enemies, some of whom he hates deeply and bitterly. Why would his mind leap to the idea of the rape and murder of a friend? 

He lays in bed until dinner ‘for a headache’ still tied in knots, and sleeps little during the night. The thought lacks the force it first had as it keeps flickering inside his head, the only problem now, he knows, that he can’t just let it _go_. Guts and fat sliding out along his blade. And the delicate resistance of his hands pushing to no avail against his shoulder. But his life is busy, and he is given enough opportunity to think of nothing but killing other men that gradually he forgets them almost entirely.

He has no explanation for it, either while it was happening or once it has taken its leave. Perhaps a passing sickness of the head, as a cold through the body. It did not possess his hands or mind, as he feared at first. Years later, during the next war, he mentions it once in nervous-joking passing, to see what measure he’ll be met with.

“Once, while I watched you train, I couldn’t help but think as good an archer you are, I’d still have no difficulty besting you hand-to-hand.” He pauses a moment, then amends, “Killing you, if it came to it.”

Gordin does not answer immediately, but the expression on his face says it has more to do with thinking than shock at his half-baked confession. “Sure, if we’re playing by _your_ strengths. You’d have to get to me first.” 

They laugh together, good friends, and it is enough a response for a near-dead idea. There is little point in handing up notions of betrayal, and none at all in mentioning the second part. The thing is burying itself: let it.


End file.
